Page Five Ghouls December 23, 2017

Mind Power

Byline: Stephanie Morgan

Dateline: December 23th, 2017

Heya, SEG-er’s, since Gary disappeared into the 5th dimension, I’ve been working on my control over the undead. You can teach them to dance. The Jackson Theory of Post-Mortal Terpsichorean Arts is correct. Skeletons can dance too, though it’s pretty creepy, like that old cartoon. If they can dance, they can march and they don’t get tired either. They don’t need sleep, which is good because we can’t afford sleep. The ravens have reported that Alwyn has begun amassing his army for another assault. On me. His granddaughter. Isn’t that messed up? Lucky me for me, I received his Christmas present early; my very own undead army starter set. I took control of the ones he sent to deal with me earlier. Can I take control of the new ones? Was I only able to take control when he isn’t here? Is it a proximity thing? Will it be like when Voldemort and Potter are shooting each other’s energy rays and you can tell who’s winning by how close the light ball between them is to one of them?

I’m starting to see what Alwyn likes about the undead, they’re very compliant. We’ve marched for hours and they haven’t needed a rest. Nathan had to stop twice. The kobolds are riding on the zombies, so they’re fine. Which gives me an idea. What are those things called that Cleopatra rode around in? I have to find out if Amazon carries those.

They don’t ask questions, either, which is a good thing because I don’t know where I’m going. I just know I have to get there. It’s like a psychic game of hot and cold, the closer I get the stronger the pull. The undead feel it too. More often it’s them who keeps us on course. At this point, I don’t think I could waver if I wanted to. It stopped being a choice miles ago.

The sky is gray like it wants to storm, but the air is too brittle for rain. The ground is solid rock and dry, ashen tufts of reeds that scratch like cicadas when the bitter breezes whirl in eddies, low to the ground. There are no trees, which in an earlier time would have been a great comfort to me, but now scream in my mind black omens. I was here. This is where the evil beacon ends.

Alwyn is here and with him an uncountable number of ghastly fiends, slavering as they await his command, burning eyes lusting for warm flesh. Could I take these under my command? Would Alwyn allow that?

“Hello, Stephanie,” he said.

“Grandpa Morgan.”

“I was hoping you’d be with me. As it turns out you’re against me. Is this true?”

“You can’t do this Grandpa.”

“Why are you here?”

“I’m here to try to talk some sense into you.”

“Failing that?”

What does he want me to say?

“You’ll kill me? Your own grandfather?”

“I don’t want to.”

“But?”

“You leave me no choice.”

“As you leave me none. So be it. Let’s see what a neophyte child can do against a master lich.”

And that’s when the CHUDs came at me.

Fight the Power

Byline: Gary Llewellyn

Dateline: December 23rd, 2017

It’s called a litter, Steph. Don’t get drunk on the power. I know I would. Shit, an army of zombies doing whatever crazy shit I tell them? I’d have my own country. Not the world, that’s a hassle no one needs, but a few hundred acres where I can do whatever the hell I want. I won’t even deal in the Petrodollar. Come at me, bros. I’d have a better than nuclear deterrent. Even if you nuke my ass, zombies are like roaches, they’ll get out. And since I got incinerated in a nuclear hellstorm, they’d be out of control.

By standard time keeping, I’ve been in the fifth dimension for a few weeks. By everywhen reckoning, I bought a condo. So however long that takes. I paid in cash, they don’t give a shit here. No background checks, job history, just, ‘how much you got?’ and, ‘when can you move in?’. I spend most of my time waiting for the quantum uncertainty field to collapse into Steph and Alwyn’s showdown. All I have, right now, are scenes of her recreating the ‘Touch of Gray’ video and then she entered her Lord of the Rings phase and is now wandering the wilderness, like I do when I’m strung out.

The fact that their throw down hasn’t precipitated out of uncertainty yet, means that it isn’t certain. They may not go it at all. What are the possible scenarios? Alwyn does a heel-face turn; doesn’t seem likely, but apparently still probable. Steph does the face-heel turn; I wouldn’t have thought so, but given the recent Cleopatra talk and meth like compulsion to march to the Necropolis, I’m bumping those odds. They both turn; Alwyn sees his granddaughter and has a cathartic breakdown. Steph, drunk and fiending on her new found heroin, goes, “No way, old man. Liches don’t know my swag, son,’ or something to that effect. Eh, that might make a sweet season 2. Not likely. They don’t meet at all or Alwyn hightails it like a frightened Muppet, like he did at the cemetery. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I wonder what would happen if I walked into the uncertainty cloud. It feels fizzy. It feels like an average of everything. Every feeling, every vision, every sound, every smell, every taste, every idea all smeared together into a mean sensation. What’s the average of being stung by a bullet ant and a blowjob? This is beyond Everywhen into Everyhow.